The Last Warmaster
by Lord of Misrule
Summary: Set 500 years in the future, Warmaster Jha'dur returns from the grave. Short story spin off from 'Dilgar War'


The Last Warmaster

"Computer, create location Omicron One. Midday, circa November 2232."

The simple metal chamber surrounding the human shimmered and shifted as beams of light burst from emitters, interlacing and sparkling with each other as images formed in the emptiness. Chairs, a table, a podium. Tan coloured walls rose from the shimmering lights and materialised over the course of a few seconds, great arched windows topped them and grew into an arched roof that enclosed the magical room. From the apertures a hazy yellow light filtered through catching the simulated dust in the air and appearing like bars of white jabbing across the high chamber and illuminating the far side of the illusion.

The Human male at the centre of this master piece stepped forward and marvelled at his work, such minute attention to detail and the realty of the location, he could almost have been there stood on an alien world five hundred years earlier.

"Begin recording." He announced with a touch of self satisfaction in his voice.

"Greetings." He spoke to the recording device hidden into the illusion recording everything that transpired. "My name is Daniel Pier and I would like to repeat my thanks to the council for allowing me to proceed with this exercise. I humbly remind the council these recordings are for your information only and must remain unseen by any others."

Daniel stepped around the large table in the centre of the room by habit, if he wanted he could have simply walked through the projection.

"We will begin with a recovered Psycho-analytical program and ascertain how effective our recreated intelligence and direction system will function. Computer, initiate program Delta One."

The lights danced again, weaving together to produce a new form, a humanoid figure standing rigid at the head of the table, a female wearing a dark blue military uniform. For a moment she was utterly still as the room linked the movement and stabilising functions of the holographic projectors with the massive depth of processing and memory ability in the facility computers which contained the personality and intelligence routines that would bring the figure to life.

Her chest rose as she in took breath, the exhalation whispering past her lips as she blinked and gained consciousness. It wasn't like a birth, at least not for the woman, for as far as she knew she had always been here. She had thirty years of memories and a close familiarity with this room, the only remarkable thing was it's emptiness, though even that wasn't entirely unusual for this time of the year.

Daniel watched his creation take its first breath, open it's eyes for the first time and then look around. The project has been his idea, his child so to speak, and he watched with barely restrained glee as the figure accepted her surroundings and ran a hand over a nearby chair. It was an utterly perfect visual simulation, and that was the aim, it all had to look real. The setting, the interaction and especially the figures he wanted to portray. That had of course been the hardest part, programming in the characters to be as believable in simulation as they were in life, hence this little test.

"Good Morning." He announced with a wide grin.

Up until that second Warmaster Jha'dur had believed she was alone, when she heard the voice she spun to see a human male in a black and white coat grinning at her like a man who knew all the secrets of the galaxy. Her head filled with a thousand questions regarding this sudden mystery, where had he come from, how did he bypass security, why hadn't her Spectre guards alerted her, how did he make it past the Omelos defence fleet, and a host of others. All of them took a secondary place to her one overriding thought and the decision it triggered.

In a heartbeat she drew her sidearm and put five rounds of blue energy into the chest of the human before he could react, not that he actually seemed to be doing anything other than stand still and look smug. To say things did not go according to plan was an understatement. Rather collapse into a smoking and agonised heap on the floor the human remained totally untouched, not even a slight burn on his pristine white coat. Slightly quizzical she adjusted her aim and fired on a chair stood beside the far wall, shattering it into bright splinters and proving the fault was not with the weapon. She holstered it and stepped closer to the human who remained clearly amused.

"I see the Dilgar reputation for hospitality was not exaggerated." The human spoke knowingly, he knew she could not hurt him and that created a cold hatred inside Jha'dur. She loathed it when people tried to put themselves above her. "You cannot harm me."

"We will have to see about that." she replied. "Who are you and how did you get in here, this is the meeting chamber of the Warmaster Council."

He smiled wider. "I am here because I created this place, just like I created you."

Jha'dur moved closer, stepping right up in front of the human who did not back away or try to push her back. He also seemed unarmed. "You are the creator? Well it is a sorry day for global religion if you are to blame for all this."

He laughed. "Allow me to explain, you see…"

As he spoke, apparently rejoicing in the sound of his own voice, Jha'dur lashed out with a knife she kept secure up her jacket sleeve at all times. It traced a silver blur across his throat and achieved precisely nothing, seeming to pass through without any damage to either object. Jha'dur was visibly disappointed.

"You are not listening." Daniel sighed. "You cannot harm me because you are dead. You died over five hundred standard years ago."

"I see." She nodded. "Security!" she yelled towards the door. "Ben'sho! Find a way to subdue this imposter and take him to room nine for study!"

"There is no one here to listen or respond. Just you and I, and I am the only real person in this room. Our surroundings are an illusion, the real building was destroyed by orbital strikes a few months after this time frame, and then finally ruined when your sun expended its outer layers."

"I don't know who you are but…"

"Computer, download historical files into programme Delta One, 2232 to the present."

The sensation was quite new to Jha'dur and naturally enough prompted a great deal of analysis in her mind. She felt no pain or discomfort, simply one moment she was herself from just before leading the combined fleets to Balos to ambush the Liberation Navy, and then she just knew everything. Literally, she could recall every detail in crystal clarity of events she had never even contemplated, including her own defeat and death. It was a remarkable expansion, but she did not feel overwhelmed, simply as if she had known all these facts for her entire life and they were completely normal.

"What you just did is physically impossible." She said slowly. "I know for a fact that mass information transfer direct to a brain causes massive neuro-electrical overload and cerebral shut down. At least it did in my experiments."

"So you see the truth in the situation." Daniel nodded. "You are a holographic image," he waved his hand through her form to emphasise the point, "And your thoughts, memories and personality are all products of a bank or cyber-organic processors in a vaccum sealed room a few hundred feet away.

"How?" She asked, her natural scientific curiosity seeping through her military façade. Even years of war and countless billions of deaths had not entirely extinguished that part of her soul. Indeed the concept of a soul being somehow linked to her present state was something that was going to take up a lot of thought.

"A mix of technologies." Daniel shrugged. "Some ours, some alien, some very, very ancient. I was the only one who could craft them together and create, well, you."

"Very well, that is how." Jha'dur nodded. "So the most important question, why?"

Daniel dropped his shoulders a little and started pacing. "The knowledge I gave you should have answered that. Earth is part of this Interstellar Alliance, a group of aliens who think they know what is best for Earth. What they really want is to keep us down and hold us back. My superiors have decided the best thing for humanity is to break away and reclaim our world for our people."

"How wonderful for you." Jha'dur smiled. "But I assume the Alliance will consider your actions a revolution and act to stop you using any means at their disposal."

"That was our analysis too, which is why we have built up a powerful force. Ships, armies, weapons of mass destruction. We have enough firepower to drive the Alliance from Earth and hold our borders against counter attack."

"The Alliance has vastly more power than you, even taking just the human contingent."

"Which is why we need a little edge." Daniel grinned. "And why this project is underway. We're going to convince people that the heroes of the Interstallar Alliance were no such thing, that they were vile and cruel people with no respect for life or freedom, just like their Alliance. Basically, we're going to make them just like you."

Jha'dur's expression remained neutral. "I'm flattered."

"Even after five hundred years your name still carries weight." Daniel explained. "Nero, Vlad the Impaler, Deathwalker. You are all spoken of in the same hushed tones just in case you might come back from the grave and sow terror once again. The old League worlds still burn an effigy of you each year to keep your spirit locked in hell."

"Well, that's very quaint of them." Jha'dur chuckled. "But you haven't fully answered my question, why am I in particular here?"

The human seemed to be avoiding the answer, which Jha'dur considered to be an immediate sign of weakness. This man thought he was totally in charge of this situation, which she was naturally happy to let him keep on believing, but all the while she was thinking through possibilities, setting goals and working out how to gain something from this utterly unthinkable situation. It was a challenge the like of which she could not have guessed in her lifetime, and she embraced it as another means of testing how strong she was.

"If you have so completely downloaded my mind into this form, then you could have accessed my knowledge and history without making me sentient. You could have as many details as you wished to work on this project without asking me in person. So why?"

"I also had to make sure the system itself worked, I needed a subject so I created you." Daniel answered hesitantly.

"It could have been anyone, it could have been Sheridan or Delenn." She paused. "I don't remember her with hair, it suits her." She grinned. "So why me?"

Daniel sighed and just gave up. "Really, I wanted to meet you."

"Meet me?"

"At college I studied your past, most people were repulsed but I was fascinated. You were a great scientist and a great General, the ideal combination as I saw it. The things you achieved weren't matched by us for centuries afterwards, you were an enigma and the reason for me joining this coalition as a Military scientist." He had turned a shade of red, a sign of embarrassment in his species Jha'dur recalled with delight. "So when I had to pick a historical figure to create from that time frame, well the choice was obvious. I wanted to bring you back to life and just see if you were like the history vids depict."

"And?"

"And this seems to have worked perfectly."

"So I am a toy to you then?" Jha'dur asked. "One more work of you, the divine creator of this world?"

"No, of course not, you are just something unique. A technological wonder of this world and a sign of things to come." Daniel smiled. "I am going to change history, I am going to make Sheridan and his kind villains, and you will be a hero."

She shook her head slowly. "No." Jha'dur locked her gaze firmly on Daniel. "You will not rewrite my history."

He blinked, a little confused. "But you see how you are remembered, you are reviled! Wouldn't you rather be loved as a saviour?"

She burst out in laughter, taking Daniel by surprise. "Don't be a fool! Do you think I'd have been remembered for so long if I was a nice saintly person? I worked hard to build a reputation of fear, and nobody is going to take that away, whatever their intentions."

Daniel seemed a little taken aback by the request. "You want to be hated?"

"I'm dead, what do I care about the opinions of alien races?"

Daniel nodded. "A good point."

"Of course I didn't care about them when I was alive either, but that is beside the point. The fact remains I am here now and may as well do something useful."

"Useful, how?"

"You said it yourself." She smiled warmly. "You brought me here because of my military expertise and scientific understanding. Why not take advantage of them? You did all this work, you might as well gain something from it."

"Computer, end recording." Daniel ordered before focusing on Jha'dur. "What are you saying?"

"I am nothing more than interwoven light and processor space, I can achieve nothing more, but I can help you." She moved closer, still smiling. "Think about it, with my advice you can help create strategy for your coalition, you can claim these ideas are your own, I don't mind, I have no pride to wound. I'm not real."

"Yes." He mused. "It would strengthen my place in the new order."

"You could single handedly make it all happen." Jha'dur smiled. "You say I am remembered five hundred years later, maybe in another five hundred years time yours will be the name whispered by whatever is left of the Alliance."

She stepped back, beaming inside. She could still push all the right buttons. "Think about it Daniel,. You are the creator afterall, what good is the power of the divine if you do not reap the rewards?" she stepped back and sat at the head of the Warmasters table. "Take your time, I won't be going anywhere."

"You have to see the weakness in your enemy." The Warmaster explained. "What they call a great strength you must exploit and cause to be their great weakness."

Two months had passed since the project began and Jha'dur had opened her eyes for the second time. Since then Daniel and his coalition had been filling the airwaves with black propaganda against the Interstellar Alliance and gradually driving away those who sympathised with that government. Earth and it's colonies were now more divided then they had been in half a millennium, and while diplomats frantically tried to reach some sort of agreement the coalition was simply playing for time.

"So what is their strength?" Daniel asked. He had spent a great deal of time talking to Jha'dur and had come to appreciate exactly what a stroke of genius this had been. It was serendipity, he had created this woman as a test and as something of an intriguing fantasy, he was curious to see her and find out why she had done the things she had done. But in all these months she had barely mentioned her past and had said nothing of her thoughts or feelings towards her war crimes. She remained utterly unrepentant, not even acknowledging her actions had been wrong.

"Democracy." She replied. "That is their strength and weakness."

"Democracy is weak, I agree." Daniel nodded. "But how does it help us? We need to break their military, democracy isn't as important as picking the right staging area to bomb."

"My dear friend," she smiled. "You don't mind if I call you friend?"

"Well no." he beamed. "Of course not, I always considered this an equal partnership."

"Good." She grinned. "I have met many powerful men in my time Daniel, but of them all you have the best potential, with my help you could be running things in a years time." She held his gaze for just the right amount of time to make sure he got the deeper meaning of the compliment and then looked away. By the gods this was far too easy.

"So where do we strike first?" Daniel asked, forcibly keeping his voice neutral.

"We attack civilian population centres." She announced. "The Eastern United States, Western Europe, Oceanic Alliance."

"Here on Earth?" Daniel gasped. "But what about the Aliens!"

"You can't fight them when you have their puppets right on your doorstep can you?" Jha'dur admonished in a school mistress tone. "You send your fleets and armies out there and the Alliance scum here on Earth will stab you in the back. You must cleanse the Earth before lashing outwards. With your back safe you can remove the Minbari, Narn and Centauri in that order. The League worlds are just to mop up later. Use weapons of planetary destruction there like virus bombs and molecular flayers. That should make your point for you."

Daniel frowned. "That'll kill billions, whole planets."

"That is the point Dear Daniel." She smiled convincingly. "Do you think the Alliance will allow you to attack it and not respond? Even if you win, ten or twenty years from now they will hit back and attack you when they have recovered. The only way to secure your future is to beat them so entirely they will never recover."

"And I suppose afterwards we can seize their territory and claim their resources for our own." Daniel suggested.

"Now you are learning." She congratulated him. "War is not won by the smart and cool, it is won by those who understand the fundamental requirement for victory."

"Which is?"

"Kill them all." Deathwalker stated with simple clarity and conviction. "Every man, woman and child so that they will not return in a generation and sow revenge. Even if just one lives on there is the chance they will rebuild and seek vengeance. Kill every last one without hesitation." She paused. "Though that is not to say you cannot gain from their deaths, my victims at least provided me with the greatest medical breakthrough of the age. I am sure you can do the same."

They continued plotting throughout the day, selecting targets and assigning assets. The Interstellar Alliance was vast but hadn't fought a real war since the Drakh were exterminated in the 2300's. It's military was fairly small and dispersed while the secret coalition forces were massed and ready to strike at key locations.

"I have one more question Warmaster."

Jha'dur had to fight hard to stop herself laughing, she had even got him using her old title, there was no doubt exactly who was in charge of this man, and through him was influencing the entire government. It felt good to be running a war once again.

"What is it my friend?"

"All of our strikes are focused on civilian targets, only a few are targeted on military bases." Daniel said. "We'll cause massive Alliance casualties, but they'll be able to hit back almost instantly."

Jha'dur manipulated the holographic projection showing a three dimensional map of local space ironically the scenery was still that of the Warmasters chamber where the council had planned their own war.. "Our primary targets are military and civilian facilities here on Earth and near space, The second wave of missiles will be aimed at major Alliance homeworlds. Within three minutes Earth will be cleansed, and within half an hour the Alliance will be crippled. Their best response time is at least four hours to get a fleet together and you have your ships already deployed. There is nothing they can do but watch their homes burn."

"But what about local Alliance forces?"

"They will all be dead in minutes." Jha'dur said. "And even if by some chance a facility or two survives the first wave, their government and command chains are in major civilian population centres which will also be targeted and destroyed."

"I see." But he did not sound convinced.

"Do you remember what I said about democracy?" Jha'dur spoke softly. "It is a strength because it gives them unity, the many are seen as equal and homogenous. They have a common purpose and will work together to achieve it. Once it sets on its path it is a juggernaut, unstoppable. I learned this by fighting such people. But first it has to begin moving, and it relies on leadership. Not just any leaders though, but inspirational leaders who stir the masses out of apathy. This Sheridan was one such person, and the current President seems rather similar."

"They have the same bloodline." Daniel said.

"Fascinating." She filed the information mentally. "The point is a democracy is run by the people, everything depends on them, so that is where you must target." She grinned widely. "Soldiers can be replaced on a battlefield, but only if there is a population to recruit from. Ships can be rebuilt but only if there are workers, miners, resource developers. Alliance doctrine calls for destroying infrastructure to cripple an enemy war machine, we will do the same but we will not take the weak half measure of bombing mines, factories and shipyards. We will kill those who operate them, and we will be feared by it."

"Because Terror is the best weapon of a Warmaster." Daniel recited.

"That is on the first page of my Journal." Jha'dur remarked.

"Earth Force recovered it from the ruins of Omelos." Daniel said. "It was required reading for Coalition officer cadets."

"Hm." She muttered in amusement. "Well it's good to be appreciated. So are we clear on this?"

"Of course Warmaster."

She stood and took a deep breath, exhaling nothing in or out, but it did seem to centre her thoughts despite them being part of a computer now. Sometimes she did forget that she was nothing more than numbers and information and not truly alive, but then she wondered what was considered truly alive? She was everything she had been when composed of flesh and blood, she had the same drives and desires, the same whims and fears, it was simply as if she had never died. Could this contraption have retrieved her soul from the void? Was there even such a thing to be found?

"The there is no more reason to hesitate. Take your plan to your superiors and present it as I have told you. By the end of the week you will be at the dawn of a new age."

Daniel began to leave, but stopped before exiting the simulated room.

"There is something else?" Jha'dur wondered.

"My superiors, when they learned I had been speaking with you they asked me one question. Why are you doing this? Why help us when it was Earth which sealed the Dilgar fate?"

"My people have a story, well at least the did before they were burned to death." Jha'dur spoke quietly. "They talked about phantoms and shades, the ghosts of those who had died unexpectedly without having time to put their affairs in order. Well as you can guess with all the wars we fought there was a lot of unexpected death and these stories gained much popularity."

"I see, but it does not answer the question."

"Keep listening." She rebuked mildly. "They believed that these echoes of former friends and relatives stayed because they had unfinished business to attend to, things like protecting their children and helping them grow, or staying beside wives and husbands, or any number of things." She smiled absently as she related the story. "Of course others believed they stayed for other reasons, to take revenge on those who destroyed them and bring ruin to their enemies."

"Lately I have felt like I was one of these shades returned from the grave. I was being given a second chance to do something, but I couldn't decide what. My enemies are long dead, the worlds that spawned them changed beyond recognition. My own planet is dust, and I have no family or descendants, so why had I come back, why was I here?"

"Because I created you." Daniel answered. "I brought you back."

"I know my dear friend." She grinned. "But there is a larger plan at work here, something greater. I was given a second chance at life and at leaving some legacy behind apart from the destruction I have already wrought. I used all my skills and talents to save my people, but in the end I failed and my planet is dead. But now I am here and you resurrect me in a bid to save your world, and I can give you the ability to do so. This is not random chance, it is destiny. You and I Daniel, we are fulfilling destiny here today, we are building a new future and it is the one I fought all my life for, to see the worthiest of species grow and dominated the masses of aliens rotting it away from within and without."

"But you're people are gone."

"I know, I know." She said sadly. "But I always considered Humans to be as like the Dilgar as any other race, even more so than the Narn. Humans had all the gifts we had, but were subtle and more cunning than we were. You are worthy successors to the title of Master Race, and I am glad to serve you as I would have done if the Vorlons had not interfered so many years ago. I had already pledged loyalty to Earth then, I shall simply fulfil my obligations now after that little leave of absence."

"Now I can give you the final victory you deserve." Daniel said sincerely. "And annihilate those who despise you."

"You are a good student." She reached out to touch his face, stopping just above the surface of his skin, the holographic image flickering slightly as his breath disturbed the air holding the image. "And will be remembered for changing everything. Now go, speak to your leaders and set things in motion."

"Yes, yes of course."

"I do have one request." She purred "Let me watch, link in the news feeds to this room and allow me to see the birth of this new world."

"it won't be instant." Daniel said. "It will be months after the reimagined broadcasts go out before we act to give the world time to absorb the material."

"I know." She said softly. "But I'd like to see it, see what all your hard work has led to. To watch the creator in action."

Daniel smiled and cast down his eyes. "Of course, I'll just be in the room across the hall." He headed away, walking with a swagger. "Today it all starts to change."

Jha'dur watched him go, rippling through an apparently solid wall with a hard stare in her eyes. "Yes, I suspect it will all change soon." With a chuckle she waited for ISN to appear in holographic form before her.

She watched Daniel at work, playing with the memories and personalities of the founders of the Interstellar Alliance. Her personal memories came from just before Balos, long before she would have met some of these people on Babylon 5 decades later. She knew them from records of course, but found their names interesting. She knew of a diplomat named David Sheridan, and her Spectres had provided the names Garibaldi and Franklin in relation to some notable human soldiers fighting her forces who seemed to be directly related to the people in front of her on the screen.

The remade footage made her a little nostalgic, gunning down refugees and experimenting on aliens was something she was unlikely to repeat especially in current circumstances, but she found the memories both comforting and sad. She was once again in a position to dictate life and death to billions, but she missed that tactile contact between predator and victim, she missed the look in her subjects eyes as they worked through anger or disbelief or simple resignation. She missed the sight, the sound and the smell of death up close, and she especially missed being the one person in the whole universe who controlled an individuals future so totally. Sometimes she even let victims live just to experience the sensations it sent through her brain. It was electric and long gone.

But there were other feelings, ones she still savoured. One of them was going to be revenge.

The first sirens shrilled through the air in the facility, disturbing the tranquillity of the simulated building she resided in, the shining wooden table as stained and scuffed as she remembered it. It even had the dents and bullet holes from that last meeting of the council she had presided over. She watched Daniel flee from the other room as the son of Garibaldi sauntered up to his inanimate friends, then counted down from five. Exactly on cue Daniel stumbled into the room.

"You have to help me! He screamed. "You have to do something!"

"Do something?" she raised a well-groomed eyebrow. "Do what?"

"The Alliance, they know our plans! They are launching a preliminary strike!" Daniels words tumbled from his mouth. "We've got less than three minutes until the first missiles hit!"

"Well that's a pity." Jha'dur sighed. "Bur credit to Mr Garibaldi, he is a faster learner than I am. Your mistake was probably giving him the same knowledge you gave me, he hacked your system didn't he?" she chuckled. "We are all created by the same programme, we all use the same technology including organic processors far more powerful than the encryption routines on your base computers. It took me an hour to break through them, I'm impressed he managed it in ten minutes."

Daniel froze, his panic momentarily falling to confusion. "Wait, you broke into our base mainframe?"

"Yes, didn't I mention that?" Jha'dur responded innocently.

"No! No you damn well didn't!" Daniel yelled. "What the hell were you doing!"

"Well first I duplicated the command codes for your leaders, that was easy." She said calmly. "Then I read all the intelligence reports you didn't want me to see about your people and the Alliance, and just recently I used your Presidents command authorisation to send your fleet to attack Minbar. So they won't be in orbit to stop the missiles or evacuate you."

Daniels mouth hit the floor, the room around flickered as base defences drew power to their shields and point defences.

"Oh but don't worry, while your leaders dither and flee for their lives I have taken action." She smiled. "I just launched a full scale Nuclear retaliation against our pre decided targets. Again this is sooner than I hoped, I wanted those ships of yours, sorry, ours, in place ready to hit the Alliance homeworlds, but this will do."

He had already been white with terror before, now he just looked like he was going to throw up. "But, but all that you said, about helping us…"

"You really weren't listening were you?" Jha'dur sighed. "I told you that when you defeat an enemy you must destroy them entirely down to the last because as long as one remains they will try to destroy you. Well Earth did a good job with the Dilgar, but one remained, and she reached a position to finally gain her revenge on the race that doomed her people." The Warmaster grinned widely and broke into laughter. "Thank you my dear Daniel, I couldn't have done it without you."

The man was apoplectic, it was so far beyond shock and fear and betrayal it had no adequate word to describe it. Daniels legs buckled and pitched him to the floor, his breath wheezing and rasping as he clawed on the hard floor and recited every prayer, plea and bargain he could think of.

"And who do you pray to?" Jha'dur scoffed. "I thought you were the creator in this room, the supreme Being? I wielded great power, and now do so again for a little while, but I always remembered my limits. These things are transient, to be spent as well as possible with as much impact as one can manage. Today is going to have quite an impact."

She strode to the large screen broadcasting the news, the reporter was babbling frantically about the incoming weapons and warning people to take shelter. She laughed lightly, it wasn't going to make the slightest bit of difference.

"One minute left." She announced. "I don't suppose you could magic up a drink could you? I feel like this is something a glass of champagne should be present for? No?" Daniel remained mewling on the floor. "Well I suppose I shall have to enjoy the view instead."

She leaned on the desk and watched a shot of the Earth from a video feed coming down through ISN from an orbiting ships. The familiar spots of light indicating nuclear weapons began dotting the blue and green world below, tattering the clouds that wisped above. She did enjoy a good planetary bombardment, it was somehow majestic to watch with detachment.

"You tried to use me, and I loath being used." Jha'dur spoke, though she doubted Daniel was conscious enough to understand. "Four people tried to use me in my life, I made sure each and everyone of them met their death, but not before I destroyed everything they loved right before their eyes." She chuckled. "Welcome to the club."

The ground shook as missiles exploded nearby, smashing the expansive military base this room was part of. She had sworn revenge on Earth, sworn to see it burn as her world had burned, and she had died before her grand plan for galactic apocalypse could come to fruition. These fascists had given her a second chance, and unwittingly doomed themselves along with the enemy. Maybe there was something in those old Dilgar ghost stories, and with a grin she decided the League worlds were right to burn an effigy of her every year to keep her spirit in hell, maybe in the future humanity would do the same, if any survived.

The Nuclear weapons fell like rain in a pond sending bright ripples of fire out from their impact point as the last Warmaster of the Dilgar Imperium met her second demise, this time of her own choosing and this time she left with a smile firmly planted on her lips. In centuries to come her name would be remembered on Earth, her image captured and annotated in ancient tomes of knowledge by orders of monks. While Sheridan, Marcus, Ivanova and the rest were illuminated in glorious light, the Deathwalker was wreathed in blackness before even the fiends of Chaos and their servants. And in every picture she was smiling as the world around her burned.


End file.
